I am building a Gingery Milling machine since I have a need for milling metals that the CNC machine isn’t strong enough to handle.
Currently I am building a Gingery Milling machine since I have a need for milling metals that the CNC machine isn’t strong enough to handle. All the castings for the machine are being done using the “lost foam” method, click here for an excellent tutorial on lost foam by Dave Kush. I decided to do lost foam because I don’t want to have to go out and buy or make special molding sand or have to make a bunch of wood patterns that will just sit around taking up space after the parts are cast.
Here’s a pic of the foam pattern for the mill bed after it has been coated with drywall compound. The straws are vents to allow the gasses from the burning foam to escape and the square parts sticking up at an angle are the sprues that feed the mold with the molten aluminum.
These are the parts I have cast so far. At the top of the pic is the headstock sitting on the bed sitting on the feet (nothing is bolted together yet. Bottom left is the spindle head while bottom center is the spindle cap. At the center is the X/Y axis carriage. At the far right are the three crank handles. Next to the cranks is the spindle which is a piece of 1″ cold rolled steel drilled through with a 1/2″ hole. All the castings were cleaned up on the relevant surfaces with a milling machine at school while the handles were cleaned up on a lathe.
As soon as I get the funds I’ll order the steel for the ways and slides so I can start actually assembling the machine.